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When terrorists stormed Elliot’s Café in London’s Borough Market on the balmy evening of June 3, Australian Candice Hedge dived under a table.
“She was absolutely terrified,” her grandfather Brian Hedge tells WHO. “She thought she was going to die.”
After ploughing down pedestrians in a van that careened across London Bridge, three men embarked on a stabbing rampage in the Central London district that Saturday night. The attack claimed the lives of seven people, including Australians Sara Zelenak, a 21-year-old nanny; and Kirsty Boden, a 28-year-old nurse.
Hedge, from Dalby, Queensland, had just finished her shift waiting tables at the restaurant, and was sitting down to dinner with her English boyfriend, Luke, when the men entered brandishing knives.
Hiding under a table, the 34-year-old, who for 12 months has been on a working holiday in London, managed to evade the initial attack, but as one of the men was leaving he happened to spot Hedge. Coming up behind her, he grabbed her by the hair and slashed at her throat.
Somehow, she survived.
“She’s in shock,” says Brian, who talked to his granddaughter on the Monday morning. “But she sounded fairly good and she’s positive.”
Sydney-born Andrew Morrison, who was in London visiting his sister, was among the 48 injured. In an attack on the street, he was stabbed in the neck.
“He’s fine,” his relieved father, David, who lives on the Gold Coast, tells WHO. “He was in shock. He may need some help when he gets back. It could have been a lot worse.”
Tragically, for many it was. The white Hertz hire van holding the terrorists crossed London Bridge around 10 PM, “swerving on and off the pavement,” witness Mark Roberts told CNN. “It knocked over several people. It knocked someone 20 feet into the air. I could see maybe five or six bodies on the ground, not moving.”
The first victim was identified as Canadian woman Christine Archibald, who was due to marry fiancé Tyler Ferguson.
“He is broken into a million pieces,” his sister Cassie Ferguson told US network CBC. “He held her and watched her die in his arms.”
The three attackers—identified as Khuram Shazad Butt, 27, Rachid Redouane, 30 and Youssef Zaghba, 22—then left the van and began the stabbing spree.
Halima Madden was out with friends watching the Champions League football final when the violence started. “Every five seconds you hear, ‘Someone has got a machete, get back inside!’ ” the 25-year-old tells WHO.
At 10.16 PM police fired an “unprecedented” 50 shots at the men, killing all three.
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